Transcription
But right now, we're here to celebrate a historic moment. A moment that yesterday, during the dinner, and thank you for for joining us under the patronage of the honorable president and his royal highness, the crown prince Musedi, where we had the pleasure to hear it firsthand.
This is the greatest alliance between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States, where we have joined hands, and you have helped us build our energy-based economy, fueling and energizing the industrial age. And now, fast forward, going to the intelligence age, where we can fuel AI factories, robotics, eaves, and all of the rest.
Speaking of that, let's start with you, Elon, if you don't mind, Jensen. Feel free to chime in. You have a big fascination of something all of us have admired: first-order thinking, which Jensen sometimes calls first-order scaling, which is an opportunity for how you have dropped the cost of batteries from a thousand for kilowatt-hour to sub-hundred bucks. And right now, you're doing the same thing with robotics for actuators with servo rotors and motors. So, I want to hear from you. How do you manage to always disrupt every single industry with that thinking?
>> Well, it's mostly not disruption, it's uh creation. So with uh, say SpaceX, with reusable rockets, uh, there really weren't any reusable rockets. Um, but the essence of getting of revolutionizing space travel is reusability. If you throw the rocket away every time, the cost of access to space is extremely high. Um, with respect to electric cars, there, there weren't any electric cars when we started making them, really. You couldn't buy any, to the best of my knowledge. Um, so with Tesla, we wanted to make electric cars compelling um and affordable. That was the goal. Um, the uh, you know, with respect to humanoid robotics, there are no useful humanoid robotic robots at this point. Um, there are sort of gimmicks, but there are there are no actually useful humanoid robots. Um, and I think Tesla's going to make the first actually useful humanoid robots. Um, and this will be quite a revolution, and I think something that will that everyone will want. Uh, because I always think of like, who, who wouldn't want their own personal C3PO, R2-D2?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Of course, everyone would want one, right? And and then there would be many in industry, uh, providing products and services. This is why I say that humanoid robots will be the biggest industry or the biggest product ever. Um, bigger than cell phones or anything else, because everyone's going to want one and uh, or maybe more, more than one, and there'll be many in industry. Um,
>> I just want R2-D2 in C3PO's body.
>> Yeah.
>> There you go. Um, [laughter]
>> Well, I mean, a humanoid robot would be better than R2-D2 and C3PO combined. Yeah. Times 10.
>> Yeah. So the, and and, you know, people often talk about uh, sort of eliminating poverty and that kind of thing, but really, the, how long have they been talking about that? Um, there's lots of talk, uh, you know, there's lots of NGOs sort of trying to do these things, but but really not succeeding. Um, and and and, you know, the evidence speaks for itself. Uh, but but but AI and humanoid robots will actually eliminate poverty. And Tesla won't be the only one that makes them. I think Tesla will pioneer this. But there will be many other companies that make humanoid robots. But there, there is only basically one way to uh, make everyone wealthy, and that is AI and robotics. And we can't talk about robotics without AI factories. And yesterday was such a historic day for the two nations, but also for all of us, where we celebrate the AI strategic partnership with the US, signed, witnessed by the honorable president and his royal highness, about how we are committing our capital, energy, land to energize the AI US ecosystem to be able to build inference nodes, training nodes, and to be the most AI-enabled nation.
With that announcement, tell me, what's what's next in AI factories? Jensen?
>> There, there's a, there's a beautiful story about how Saudi Arabia's building AI refineries now, building AI fac, or oil refineries to AI factories.
>> I love that.
>> I, you know, I've said that that AI is an infrastructure. And the reason for that, of course, we understand AI from the perspective of the technology and how it's revolutionizing every industry. Digital intelligence, of course, has applications into every, every field, and so it's going to be used by every company, every industry, every country. In that way, it's foundational, and therefore, it's part of infrastructure. What is new about AI from a computer science perspective is that the way computing was done in the past was largely retrieval-based computing. Somebody typed in a story, or somebody created a, a piece of art, or came, came up with four versions of a digital ad, or it's all pre-built by somebody, which is then using a system to retrieve the appropriate version for you. It's a retrieval-based computing model. Hadoop and many of the, the, the frameworks and operating systems of the past, all designed to retrieve the appropriate information for you. But today, software is going to be generated in real-time. It's generative, based on the context, based on the circumstance, based on who you are, based on the problem you ask that, based on your prompt. It will generate unique content for you every single time, for everybody. It's unique. When you use Grok, every time you use it is different, just based on, right, based on, based on the, based on the prompt that you give it, and based on the circumstance. And and so therefore, it used to be retrieval-based, today it's generative. And if it's generative, then, and every time is different, then you need AI factories all over the world to generate the content in real-time, which is the reason why you need AI factories. And and this is a unique way of doing computation, but the benefit, of course, is that everything isn't preconceived and pre-documented, and it's, it's contextually s, contextually sensible, and and therefore intelligent.
>> So, AI factories and robotics. And we heard it yesterday from his royal highness, his vision, how to augment our workforce with roughly tens of millions of robotics to be able to infuse the next wave of productivity and progress. But this scares a lot of folks here when it comes to the future of jobs. So, let's hear about your thoughts, uh, Elon and Jensen, on that.
>> Uh, sure. Well, um, if you say like, in the long term, where will things end up? Long term, I don't know what long term is. Maybe it's 10, 20 years, something like that. For me, that's long term. Um, my prediction is that work will be optional.
>> Optional.
>> Optional. Um, so.
>> We'll take that.
>> Yeah. I mean, it, it'll be like, uh, playing sports or a video game or something like that. Um, if you want to work, uh, you know, in the same way, like you can, you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you could grow vegetables in your backyard. It's much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, but some people still do it because they like growing growing vegetables. Um, that will be what work is like, optional. Um, now, between now and then, there's actually a lot of work to get to that point.
>> Mhm.
>> Um, and I always recommend people read, read Ian Banks' uh, Culture books to get a sense for what a probable positive AI future is like. Um, and interestingly, in those books, money is no longer, doesn't exist. It's kind of interesting. And I, I, my guess is, in, if you go out long enough, assuming there's a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which there seems likely, the money will, will stop being relevant at some point in the future. Um, now, there will still be constraints on power, like electricity and mass. Uh, the fundamental physics elements will still be, still be constraints. Um, but, um, I think at some point, uh, currency becomes irrelevant.
>> Jensen, any thoughts?
>> Um, [laughter] by the way, the Nvidia earnings call is later today. [laughter] And by the way, since currency's relevant. [laughter]
>> Cheers.
>> Elon just wants to share with you [laughter] some breaking news. [laughter] The two of us who like to share some breaking news. Uh, let's see. I, I would say, I would say there's, um, different horizons you could look at. Everybody's jobs will be different. That, I think that that's for sure. Uh, how, how the students learn will be different. Um, uh, how people do their work will be different, obviously, because a lot of the things that, that we do mundanely or arduously or very difficultly are going to be done very simply, and and so we're going to be more productive from that s, from that sense. One of the things that I will say is that for most people, or a company, if some, if your life becomes more productive, and if the things that you're doing, uh, with great difficulty becomes simpler, it is very likely because you have so many ideas, you'll have more time to go pursue things. It is my guess that Elon will be busier as a result of AI. I'm going to be busier as a result of AI. And the reason for that is because we have so many ideas we want to pursue, so many things that, that we still have in our backlog inside our company that we can go pursue. If we were more productive, we can get to those things faster. And so in the near term, I would say that that there's every evidence that that we will be more productive, and yet still be busier, because we have so many ideas. One thing that I will say, give you, give you some evidence is that, uh, and I was just telling Elon about this earlier, radiology, for example, has largely been uh, converted to AI-driven radiology, and there's some really great companies doing that. And the surprising thing is the prediction that all radiologists would be the first jobs to go was exactly the opposite. The trend shows that there are more radiologists being hired now as a result of AI. And the reason for that, if you take a step back, it's because the goal of a radiologist is not to study the images. The goal of a radiologist is to diagnose a disease. Now, the studying of the images became so productive. They could study more images, study more modalities, spend more time with the patients. And as a result, they were actually accepting more patients. We're doing more radiology all around the world. We're doing a better job with diagnosing disease. And so that's, that's kind of the, the near-term, near-term, uh, outcome of of, uh, AI and productivity. And and we'll see, we'll see what happens long term. You know, I, I, when, when currency doesn't matter anymore, just, you know, let me know right before.
>> You'll see it coming. [laughter]
>> You'll see it coming. Like, like.
>> We text often, so just, just.
>> Yeah, we do.
>> Yeah, just text it off. Yeah, let me know. I kind of, I kind of agree with with both of you, because if you look at every technological trend, every general-purpose technology has been net new positive for for the globe, for humanity, and so forth. And let me share with you two.
>> And your excellency, I think it's precisely the reason, the reason for that is because all the great ideas from from innovators like Elon, you have so many good ideas.
>> That, and Jensen, as well.
>> Yeah, well, you know, thank you.
>> So, let me share with you two stories from two Saudi innovators in collaboration with a lot of great, the great work that Nvidia does, that Grok does. One is Professor Omaragi. All right. Say that again. Is Professor Omaragi, who is.
>> I might need to might need to move the mic.
>> All right.
>> Yeah. Come on. We'll share this one.
>> All right. [laughter] So now get closer.
>> Let's, let's, let's try this one more time. So, one of them is Professor Omaragi, who's the first American Saudi to win a Nobel Prize in creating new chemistry. And the way he has done that, he has leveraged your AI accelerators and models like Grok to be able to create new chemistry when it comes to metal-organic frameworks. Those are metal ions that are positively charged with organic linkers to be able to effectively create a sponge with .33 nanometer pores to capture water from air and also to capture carbon dioxide. The second story has also to do with AI accelerated by Nvidia and with models like Grok, which is Nanop, which is effectively creating a nano robot, 500 nanometers by 1,000 nanometers, to be able to do gene editing, leveraging the CRISPR technology to take out sickle cell disease. Now, in both these instances, they originated 20 years ago in research, but AI was able to really accelerate the outcomes and the outputs such that we can move into new value pools. So, I think with every technological trend, humanity is going to always manage to shift to new value pools when it comes to workforce and productivity. But we have some great announcements to talk about here today. Let's begin with you, Elon. The things that we're doing with XAI.
>> Uh, yeah, we're excited to announce that, um, we're doing a, a, a, uh, a 500 megawatt. I mean, yeah, 500. Sorry.
>> 500 megawatt.
>> 500 megawatt. Yeah.
>> We're doing [laughter] 500.
>> We're doing 500 megawatt.
>> Sorry.
>> Yeah, yeah. The 500 gigawatt one will have to wait. Um, so, um.
>> That that'll be eight bazillion trillion dollars. Um, [laughter] Not that.
>> Uh, [laughter] so, yeah, we, we're, we're doing a, um, XAI and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are doing a, uh, Humane 500 megawatt, starting with 50 megawatts, phase one. And we're doing it with Nvidia. Congratulations to the Humane team, to Target team. Such a fantastic job. Jensen, I think we're also doing some great announcements, uh, this week.
>> We are.
>> Yeah. [laughter] Well, we're, we're announcing, we're announcing all kinds of things. Um, uh, our partnership with Humane is is going incredibly well. First of all, uh, we, we, uh, work together to get this company started and off the ground, and just got an incredible customer with Elon. Could you imagine a startup company, approximately $10 billion in revenues now, going to uh, build a data center for Elon? Uh, 500 megawatts is gigantic. Uh, this company is off the charts, uh, right away. Uh, in addition to that, we're, um, uh, working, working, uh, AWS, as you know, is also.
>> Congratulations to the Humane team with AWS, starting with 100 megawatts with a gigawatt ambition and, uh, counting.
>> So, AWS is also coming to Humane. Uh, we're working with, uh, Humane on Omniverse, uh, digital twins. Uh, as you know, that AI is not just, well, just agentic AI and chatbots and, uh, cognitive AI is incredibly important to the world. But AI applies to everything: chemicals and proteins and genes and physics and fluid dynamics and particles, and of course, robotics and activation. And, um, and we created this world called Omniverse, where robots can learn how to be good robots, and and it's physically based. It obeys the laws of physics. And so robots can learn in these environments, and we're working with Humane to apply Omniverse to all kinds of, uh, digital factories and robotics and warehouses and things like that. And so that's, that's another, uh, we're, we're also working, uh, in Saudi Arabia to build supercomputers to simulate quantum computers and, uh, uh, using our computers to be the controller and the error correction. Quantum error correction requires an enormous amount of computation. And so, so we're doing a lot of great work there too. So, a big partnership with Humane, they're off the charts, um, off the ground, and off the charts at the same time. This is how we walk the talk in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in partnership with the US. Yesterday, the president and his royal highness announced the AI strategic framework and partnership. Today, we're going big with Elon and Jensen. So, thank you for those opportunities. [applause]
Now, they, they told me I have time for two last questions. So, last night at the dinner, I got a number of questions because it seems that the schedule leaked, and uh, everybody was giving me hints about the last two questions I'm going to do. So, the first one was for you, Elon, and there's a big one for you, Jensen. So, prepare for that one. AI in space, is that possible?
>> Uh, yes. If, if civilization continues, which it probably will, uh, then AI in space is inevitable. Um, um, [laughter] you know, I always have to like, preface that, you know, we shouldn't take civilization for granted. We, we need to make sure to take care to ensure that civilization hasn't an upward arc. I mean, any student of history knows that civilization does not always have an upward arc. And in fact, civilizations have life, life cycles. So, hopefully, we are in a strong upward arc. I think we are, for now. Um, but we don't want to take that for granted or be complacent. Um, but the, in order to, the way to think of AI in space is that in order to achieve any meaningful percentage of a Kardashev II scale civilization, where you're using even a millionth, a millionth of the sun's energy, you must have solar-powered AI satellites in, in deep space. So, so, once you realize, like, once you think in terms of a Kardashev II scale civilization, which is what, what percentage of the sun's energy are you turning into useful work, then you, then it becomes obvious that space is overwhelmingly what matters, overwhelmingly. The sun only receives one, roughly one billionth. The Earth only receives roughly, uh, two billionth of the sun's energy. So, if you want to have something that is say, a million times more energy than Earth could possibly produce.
>> You must go into space.
>> It's, and and so, um, you know, this is where it's kind of handy to have a space company, I guess.
>> Sell the book.
>> Easier to cool chips in space, too.
>> Yes.
>> Easier to cool chips in space. Yeah.
>> Yes. There's definitely no water in space, so you're going to have to do something.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh, that doesn't involve water.
>> Just hang out.
>> Well, it's, you just got to radiate.
>> That's right.
>> Um.
>> So, my estimate is that actually that that the cost of of electricity, like, like the cost-effectiveness of AI in space will be overwhelmingly better than AI on the ground. So far, long, long before you, uh, exhaust potential energy sources on on Earth. Long, long before, meaning like, I think even perhaps in the four or five-year time frame, the lowest cost way to do AI compute will be with solar-powered AI satellites. So, I'd say not more than five years from now.
>> Wow. And just look at the supercomputers we're building together. Let's say each one of the racks is two tons. Out of that two tons, 1.95 of it is probably for cooling.
>> Right?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Just imagine how tiny that little supercomputer is, right? Each one of these GB300 racks will just be a little tiny thing.
>> And and just electricity generation is is already becoming a challenge.
>> Um, so if, if you start doing any kind of scaling for both electricity generation and cooling, um, you realize, okay, space is incredibly compelling. Um, so, like, let's say you wanted to do, um, I don't know, two or 300 gigawatts per year, um, of of AI compute.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, it's very difficult to do that on Earth. Uh, the, so the, the, uh, US average electricity usage, last time I checked, was around 460 gigawatts per year average usage. Um, so, so something like say, uh, you know, at three, 300, if you're doing 300 gigawatts a year, that would be like two-thirds of US electricity production per year.
>> There's no way you're building power plants at that level.
>> Um, and then if you take it up to say, a terawatt per year, impossible.
>> Yeah.
>> Like, you have to do that in space. There, there just is, there just is no way to do a terawatt, uh, per year on Earth. Um, and, and in space, you, you've got continuous solar. Um, you've got, uh, you don't, you actually don't need batteries because it's always sunny in space.
>> That's right. Exactly.
>> Um, and, and, and the solar panels actually become cheaper because you don't need glass or framing. Um, and the cooling is just radiative. So that's, that's why I think.
>> That's the dream.
>> Yes.
>> That's the dream. So, Jensen, everybody last night was asking me, and I'm mindful it's an earnings, uh, call for you today. So, I'm going to say this delicately. Everybody has been asking me to ask you, are we going to have an AI bubble?
[laughter]
>> That's the last question. All right, let's. No. All right, let me. Well, let me just hear you what we see. Okay, so, so I, I think it's really important when you look at what's happening around the world and go back to first principles of what's happening in computer science and computing. There are three things that that's happening. The first thing is that we all know that Moore's Law has run its course, and the ability, the amount of demand for computing versus the amount of computation we can get out of general-purpose computing is really challenging. And so the world's been moving to accelerated computing for some time. We've been pushing this now for some over 20 years. Let me give you one statistic. I was just at Supercomputing six years ago. Uh, CPUs were 90% of the world's supercomputers, top 500 supercomputers, six years ago. This year, less than 15%. Went from 90% to 10%. And meanwhile, accelerated computing went from the other way, 10% to now 90%. Okay, so you're seeing that inflection point, the transition in high-performance computing from general-purpose computing to accelerated computing. Well, one of the, one of the most data-intensive, one of the most intensive computation things that the world does in cloud is data processing. Several hundred billion dollars of computation is done on just raw data processing. Has nothing to do with AI, just SQL processing, data frames, you know, everybody's names, address, their their sex, their their age, where they live, you know, how much money they make. All of that sits into a data frame. And that data frame drives the world today, whether it's in banking, or, you know, whether it's in credit cards, or of course, e-commerce, and everything from ad recommendation, and everything is driven off of that data frame. That data frame costs hundreds of billions of dollars to go compute. And so that's the number one thing, end of Moore's Law. The second thing is generative AI. What the, the most important application of the last 15 years is called recommender systems. How do we know what information to recommend to us, uh, in a social feed? How do you know what ad to recommend to somebody? What book to recommend? What movie to recommend? The world is the internet is so gigantic without a recommender system that a little tiny of us will have no chance of ever seeing the right information. That recommender system is the engine of the internet today. That's going generative AI. It used to be running on CPUs, now it runs on GPUs. Which then says the third thing, when, if you just look at those two applications, many of the internet companies can build enormous number of GPU supercomputers just doing that. Of course, then it creates this, the third opportunity on top of it, which is agentic AI. This is Grok, and this is OpenAI, this is Anthropic, you know, this is Gemini. Agentic AI sits on top of that. But don't, you know, don't forget to think about what is happening above, underneath what everybody sees as AI today. There's a whole movement of computing from general-purpose computing to accelerated computing. And that, if you just, if you take that into consideration, you'll come to the conclusion that in fact, what is left over to fuel that revolutionary agentic AI is not only substantially less than you thought, and all of it justified.
Well, I was just informed by the team that my boss and your bosses is going to talk next, the honorable president and his royal highness, the crown prince. And hence, we ran out of time. But in essence, [applause] this is a such, so much love for you, Elon and and Jensen. But this, in essence, is a 92 alliance that shifted from energy to digital to the intelligence age, powered by pioneers such as Elon and Jensen, to serve humanity and create on a net new basis, new economies, new jobs, and a better future for humanity, powered by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Thank you for a lifetime partnership and friendship. Thank you, Elon. Thank you, Jensen.
>> Thank you.
>> [applause]